LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, EVAGEEKS AND SONIC STADIUM MESSAGE BOARDS, AS OF 15:18 - 23/MAY/2017.

And we're back with more films added to the list! Not much else to say in terms of what's been added, since there hasn't been a substantial increase or a milestone beaten like the last couple of updates. Still, for all those interested, here's the list of films added to the list:

Now, onto clearing up the matter of whether or not puppet movies (in the style of Jim Henson, for instance) should be included onto the list. I've asked a few people on the subject, and there was an article I stumbled across that went pretty deep into the subject: Puppetry is Not Animation. On thinking about it, a bigger part of me feels that these kind of puppet movies count as live-action than they count as animation, simply because I feel that the puppets are being moved about in real time compared to being photographed frame-by-frame.

That might be a cheap justification for it, though I suppose there's the idea of changing the name of the project to 1001 Animated and Puppetry Films You Should Watch. I'm open to the idea of coming back to this topic and reevaluating it somewhere down the line, but for now, I'm not going to count them. Sorry to the guy who kept suggesting them. Now, for this update's film I'm uncertain about:

This is perhaps one of the strangest films I've come across. Back in 2001, presumably in an attempt to catch people up to speed for the upcoming sequel and also make some money back on this expensive project, SEGA decided take their Dreamcast cult classic Shenmue and turn it into a movie. Literally. They filmed a playthrough of the game and edited major cutscenes, gameplay sections and whatnot into a semi-coherent 90 minute film summing up the plot of the original. You may remember this was included as a bonus disk with the Xbox version of Shenmue II.

The existence of this film fascinates me to no end. Yes, it's pretty much the same as those cutscene compilations you can find of most games on YouTube these days, but I'm staggered at how someone at SEGA went to the effort of recording gameplay, removing HUD elements, and trying their damnedest to make this come off as its own movie. I kinda want to include it simply for how bewildering this movie is, but I happily admit that it is a tarted up collection of gameplay and cutscenes that SEGA put into Japanese theatres for cash(!). I won't blame anyone who says this shouldn't get in, but I thought I'd ask for y'all thoughts on the topic anyway and see where this goes.

Thanks for reading, follow this topic if you wanna keep up with events, keep contributing with suggestions and feedback, and have a great day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, EVAGEEKS AND SONIC STADIUM MESSAGE BOARDS, AS OF 10:21 - 28/MAY/2017.

Pretty much the same business as usual with this update; a few more shorts and films added to the list, some of which I came across by checking out a few lists someone recommended to me a while back! There was quite a few genuine surprises in watching these shorts, and I'd urge you to check out some of what's been included today (especially anything from the frankly fantastic 2013 run of Mickey Mouse shorts):

In the previous update, I pondered the question of including Shenmue: The Movie, a bizarre creation where SEGA took gameplay and cutscenes from Shenmue and edited it down into a somewhat coherent 90-minute film. On thinking about it some more, and asking one or two people on the matter, I came to the conclusion that if we were to count video game cutscenes as animation, that would open the gates of hell in terms of what gets in, why it would get in, and the endless pedantic arguments that would follow: what counts as a cutscene, which cutscenes would be included, what about games that are nothing but QTEs, etc. There's a time and a place to critique video game cutscenes and rank them in terms of what they're trying to do, but not in this topic.

I have no problems with counting internet animations on the list if they're good enough or had some kind of an impact, and arguably this has had something of an impact. In 2014, over 250 animators contributed to a project that involved taking an episode of Sailor Moon and reanimating each and every shot in whatever style the animators wanted to do. This became really quite popular, to the point where a sequel episode was made in 2016, other animators were inspired to do the same for an episode of Dragon Ball (known as Seven Star Animate) and a similar brigade of animators are working to reanimate an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh! (tentatively titled Yu-Gi-Oh! Reanimate).

The only question on including it is that technically, it's not an original animation. It's using the same storyboards as the original episode, and doesn't deviate from said episode beyond whatever the animator decides to do with their cut (granted, I think some of the touches and movements add more to the episode). Honestly, I really do think it should go in the list, but I'd rather run it by you guys first and see what you think. Let me know, and I'll see where I go from there.

Thank you for reading, please keep contributing with suggestions and feedback, and have a great day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, EVAGEEKS AND SONIC STADIUM MESSAGE BOARDS, AS OF 20:24 - 05/JUNE/2017

Holy crap, I didn't think about it while working on the latest updates for this list, but the 2010s alone has reached 150 films! To think a single decade could supply that many entries, even though it's still only the early stages and things can/will be cut as this project progresses, is actually kind of beautiful. Especially with the internet allowing all sorts of creators to get involved; I've actually amassed enough awesome shorts that I could do a list of 50 shorts from this decade alone to recommend to everyone!

At the same time, we've also gone past the benchmark of 600 films, which is ridiculous and amazing considering this project started less than two months ago. Once again, a big thanks to everyone who's contributed to this project with suggestions, feedback and whatnot! You are all amazing, and I don't think I'll be ever able to thank you enough for this!

In the meantime, here are the films, shorts and episodes added to today's update:

On the subject of including re-animations (such as Moon Animate Make-Up), someone made a very good point about it: while it does use the storyboards of the original episode, it counts more as a remake since it doesn't trace over the original footage. With that in mind, I also remembered that Disney/WB/MGM would occasionally remake some of their old shorts with brand new animation, and it would be unfair to discount them from inclusion just because they're not the original version. So, at least for now, re-animations (especially those by fans) will be up for inclusion on the list.

Now, for this week's question to the audience, I want your thoughts on a point that a forum poster elsewhere asked with the last update:

SHOULD TWO-PART MOVIES BE LISTED AS ONE FILM, OR TWO?

This was asked in relation to the two-part adaptation of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which I had listed as two separate entries, but said forum poster felt should be counted as one film to free up space for another film. And I do think that is a good idea, at least in the context of these two specific films, but I'm not sure for doing that with films in general.

On the one hand, you could argue that two-part films make up two halves of one story, but each film has its own self-contained story to tell within a bigger story, and it can sometimes happen that one half is stronger than the other (ask most folks who prefer Back to the Future Part II to Part III, even though they technically are the two halves of Marty's next adventure). On that note, the "separate-portions-of-a-story" logic could be used to justify counting other pairs of films, or even trilogies, under one film. "What? All four new Evangelion films tell their own portions of one big story, so why not just have 3.33 used to represent the whole series?"

On the other hand, if the story is clearly split up into two parts and only really works when you watch the two films together, maybe it would make more sense to list it as one film. What do you think? Should I make an exception for this case, and perhaps other films of a similar sort? Or should I list the two films separately and not wind up causing a pedantic conversation about representing film series with one film? Let me know, and I'll see what to do next.

Thanks for reading this, please contribute with suggestions and feedback if you can, and have a great day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, EVAGEEKS AND SONIC STADIUM MESSAGE BOARDS, AS OF 23:34 - 11/JUNE/2017.

Yikes, I think this might be the biggest update to the list since the project began, with 78 films being added! This has not only taken us over 650 films in total, but has left just a couple of films short of breaking past the barrier of 700 films! That's baffling and amazing at the same time, and I can only again offer my endless gratitude to everyone who has contributed to the project with suggestions, feedback and whatnot. Thank you all!

If you're interested to see what films were added to the list, here they are:

To settle last week's question of whether two-part films should be listed as one film (such as Batman: The Dark Knight Returns), I talked to a couple of people in the last few days and was convinced to list each film in a series individually, but to make an exception for The Dark Knight Returns. The reason for that is because the two films are explicitly two parts of the same story and have generally similar qualities that it would be redundant to list the same thing twice for slightly different reasons (unlike, say, the new Evangelion movies, which are very different from each other). Unless very similar cases crop up in the near future, I don't intend on making any more exceptions in this area, lest we end up getting lost in pedantic arguments.

Now, this next question will be the last one concerning what kind of films can/can't be included for quite some time, since we've covered pretty much all the major grey areas. So, here's my question:

SHOULD ANTHOLOGY/COMPILATION FILMS BE LISTED AS A WHOLE FILM, OR AS CERTAIN SEGMENTS?

You might notice there's something of an inconsistency in regards to compilation/anthology films, where there isn't a single continuous story but several short films grouped together under a certain theme, on the list. Films such as the Fantasia movies and Robot Carnival are included in their entirety, yet with other films like The Animatrix, they're represented with one particular segment. I'd like to sort out this issue and have every compilation/anthology film be treated equally, but I'm not sure what to do.

On the one hand, I'm fine with listing the film in general, since some films are more important for their historical context as a whole than the inherent quality of particular shorts (e.g. Fantasia should be included entirely for what the project in general was trying to do, not for the merits of one or two of its segments). On the other hand, there are some films that only have one or two particularly important or high-quality segment, and it would make more sense to emphasize the quality of those segments compared to the rest of the project (e.g. I consider Beyond to be the only really interesting segment in The Animatrix).

I apologize if this sounds unclear, but this basic representation of what either solution would look like should hopefully give you a better understanding:

If you can help me come to some conclusion on this matter, I'd really appreciate that. I want to be fair to all anthology/compilation films, and I want to hear other perspectives that I may not have previously considered. Thank you.

Whatever you end up doing, please contribute with suggestions and feedback, share this thread around to other people so they can join in, and I'll do everything I can to keep moving forward with this project. Thank you all again, and have a great day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, EVAGEEKS AND SONIC STADIUM MESSAGE BOARDS, AS OF 22:29 - 20/JUNE/2017.

Hello, and welcome back to the thread! I've given the opening post a bit of a clean-up, to make it more easily readable to newcomers, and updated the rules since the questions I've been asking y'all have been cleared up. In addition, we've got another big update, with 48 films having been added to the list! This is just a couple of films short of the 750 film threshold, meaning that we've managed to get over 700 films! Thank you all for contributing to this project, with suggestions, feedback and questions, to such an extent! You're the best! And now, for the updated films:

As you might have noticed from the update, I've come to a conclusion on last week's question; mainly as to whether anthology films should be listed a one film, or by whatever unique shorts are in these films. After talking to a couple of people, I've decided to list the film in its entirety, though I will have no issue listing shorts of particular note in a bonus section or something like that. Otherwise, there might have been a chance that people would get really pedantic about this topic.

Now, last time I said that I wouldn't have anything else to discuss, but someone raised the point of including mini-series such as Over the Garden Wall into the list. I hadn't really considered the point, but I believe that since the episodes tend to be ten minutes long, they should be listed like TV episodes or animated shorts. However, there's also the fact that some mini-series have tight plotlines that develop over the few mini-sodes that they have, so it would surely make more sense to list them in their entirety.

I'm not too sure on what to do on this subject, so I'd like to hear your thoughts on it.

In the meantime, keep contributing with suggestions, feedback and questions! I'll do my best to address/include them! Thank you all once again, I hope you've found a good few films from this thread, and until we meet again, have a great day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, TWITTER AND OTHER WEBSITES I WAS RECOMMENDED TO CHECK OUT, AS OF 18:38 - 30/JUNE/2017.

To try and expand the scope of what's included on the list, I took to asking a couple of animation enthusiasts on Twitter and was sent to some websites listing good shorts/films. This would explain why this next update has 103 films, which manages to take us past not only 750 films but 800 films! Hell, it leaves just a couple of films under the 850 film threshold! It's simply insane to think of how many films have been added with this update, particularly to the 1930's. In fact, I'm quite tempted to give the 30's its own section from here on out. We'll see, but for now, thank you all again. You're amazing!

I won't bother adding an update list, since you can find that on the forum's opening post. (Yeah, I've had to make quite a few changes to the opening post, due to reaching the character limit. You can find out more there.)

Onto last week's topic, where I asked how mini-series should be covered in this series. I wasn't sure whether to count the mini-series as a film or list a specific episode, but after asking a couple of people elsewhere for their thoughts, I've come to the conclusion that despite their length, mini-series are still structured like TV shows or shorts series. Each segment is only a few minutes long, and to list an entire mini-series would simply open the gates for people debating on why TV shows with tight narratives can't be included either. It's simply too broad, but I will allow episodes of a mini-series; just not the whole darn thing!

Now, since we're pretty much finished with grey areas (at least until someone brings up one that I completely forgot about), this next question is a bit more complex. To increase exposure and people participating in this project, I'm going to try and start social media pages for the 1001 Animated Films You Should Watch project. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc; whatever would best get more folks involved in this project. However, I'm completely useless when it comes to these sort of things, so I'd like to hear your suggestions on what I should do when setting up and promoting these pages. For some examples:

How often should I post? Should I ask someone more competent to manage the social media aspect? What kind of aesthetic should the pages go for?

Those are just a few basic questions, but if you've got anything more to offer, please let me know and I'll see where to go from there. In the meantime, please keep contributing with suggestions, feedback and questions! Thank you all once again, and until we meet again, have a great day y'all!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE AND OTHER WEBSITES I WAS RECOMMENDED TO CHECK OUT, AS OF 15:58 - 08/JUNE/2017.

Today's update is a pretty special one, for two reasons.

One: this update marks the 3 month anniversary of me starting this thread, all the way back on the 9th of April.

Two: the list of suggested films has gone over not just 850 films; not just 900 films; and not just 950 films. The list has gone over ONE THOUSAND FILMS!

To collect a list of that many films, shorts, episodes, music videos and so on over the course of just three months is not only far beyond whatever expectations I had when I kicked this thing off, but is simply incredible to think that so many people would be able to suggest and contribute a staggering number of animated works, along with feedback in helping me refine what to include.

As my way of celebrating today's update, I'm going to thank everyone who has contributed to the project in some way. We're not done taking suggestions yet (like I said before, we'll probably stop at around 2000 or thereabouts), but I'd like to take the time to give my gratitude to everyone listed below:

Thank you all. I say this so often, but that's because I mean it every time. I couldn't have done this without you.

And with that, I'll be off to take a brief break from cataloguing films. I'll still take questions, but I need to pace myself for a little while. I'll be back soon enough, however, so you won't have to wait too long. I'll still be around to answer questions if need me, so ask them if you need to.

The latest updates to the list can be found in the opening post, so be sure to check that out.

Thank you. Keep contributing if you can with suggestions, questions and feedback. Until we meet again, have a great day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE AND OTHER WEBSITES I WAS RECOMMENDED TO CHECK OUT, AS OF 13:09 - 17/JUNE/2017.

Eh, I just couldn't stop myself from updating this project one last time. And bleeding buggery, this update's the biggest one yet; with 346 films, the amount of films on the list skips straight past 1100, 1200 and 1300 films, and heads to just over 1350 FILMS! Once again, this is both insane and beautiful, and I can only thank everyone who has suggested films or recommended other lists for me to check out. Y'all are amazing and I love you.

The films added to the list can be seen in the opening post for this thread!

I've not made much progress on the social media front just yet, but I'm gathering ideas for what I could do. One of these involves doing a YouTube channel focused entirely around animation-related topics (reviews of animated films/shows, discussions about certain topics, countdowns listing favourite shows/films/whatever, animator reels). I will start getting to work on them when I come back from my break.

And that will likely be about 2-3 weeks, since I'm going off to somewhere on holiday for the first time in 3 years, and I plan to not do any kind of work during that time. In the meantime, please keep suggesting animated films, providing feedback, and giving me advice on how to promote this topic on social media if you can. Thank you all, and have a great day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, THE BOOK 'ANIMATION ART', AND OTHER WEBSITES I WAS RECOMMENDED TO CHECK OUT, AS OF 14:49 - 4/AUGUST/2017.

Hey, I'm back from holiday, and with an update of 245 films! That takes us past 1400 and [b]1500 films, with the total count at this point being just under 1600 FILMS! A small number of these films come from reading the animation history book Animation Art: From Pencil to Pixel, the History of Cartoon, Anime & CGI, a very interesting read for anyone even the slightest bit interested in the global history of animation over the last 100+ years. Sadly, there's nothing on Google Books, but I can at least give y'all a link to buy it on Amazon if you're interested:

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone who has contributed to the suggestions so far, or given feedback to help me improve and guide what I'd like to try do with this project. It's allowed me to see much how there is the world of animation beyond the few scraps that I knew when starting off, and it's given me enough confidence to start trying to get somewhere in the realm of animation appreciation. Writing articles about animation for certain websites, planning ideas for that YouTube channel to promote this project, etc. Like I said before, and will continue to say, you are all amazing and I love y'all. Thank you.

Please keep contributing to the project with suggestions and feedback if you can, and have a great day.

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, THE BOOK 'ANIMATION ART', AND OTHER WEBSITES I WAS RECOMMENDED TO CHECK OUT, AS OF 15:13 - 13/AUGUST/2017.

Hey there! I'm back with another update, and it's another big one! With 210 films being added to the list, that means we have a total so far of 1809 FILMS - JUST A COUPLE FILMS UNDER TWO THOUSAND FILMS! For this update, I'd like to thank icbf, an animation enthusiast on Twitter who directed me to the massive list of animated films that I've been using to add to this suggestions list over the last month. I'd also like to give my thanks to tamerlane420, another animation enthusiast (though he seems to have left the internet some time last year) and the guy who compiled that massive list in the first place. I didn't think I'd get to anywhere near as many films as it turned out to be, so I'd like to thank the both of you for that!

As of this update, I've finally listed every film/short/etc. in that list (which you can find here), so unless I'm directed to a similarly massive list of completely different films, there's a decent chance these updates won't be as voluminous from here on out. But considering we're not too far off from reaching 2000 films, that's fairly understandable. Nevertheless, I'll make sure to keep updating this as often as I can.

Now, I've not made much progress with making social media profiles for this project, largely due to a rut I'm been in the last week or so where I've not the energy to do much of anything creative, but I hope to pick myself back up and move forward. If anyway wants to offer ideas or advice in this area, please let me know and I'll get into contact with you about ideas.

In the meantime, please keep contributing with suggestions, feedback and advice, thank you so much if you have already contributed, and until we meet again, have a great day y'all!

Reichu wrote:Keep on truckin! I haven't had anything to say or add for a while, but whenever I reach my next inevitable animation binge your project is the first thing I'll check out.

Awesome, thank you! I hope you come across a few unexpected surprises; those tend to be the best parts of checking binging a whole bunch of animated things. Anyway, onto the topic of this post...

AN EXPLANATION FOR MY ABSENCE:

It's been a couple of weeks since my last update on this project, and that will continue to be the case for another couple of weeks. The reason for that is because I've gotten a case of shingles (chicken pox for adults, as far as I understand it) over the last few days, and I've been advised to rest a lot while the medication I've been given tries to sort things out. I don't like working when I'm sick, mainly because I'll be too tired most of the time, so you won't be seeing anything from this project until I get better.

I hope you're all doing well, and I hope you'll still be doing well when I update this project again. Have a good day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE AND OTHER WEBSITES I WAS RECOMMENDED TO CHECK OUT, AS OF 18:08 - 4/SEPTEMBER/2017.

Hey there, everyone! I hope y'all are doing well; I'm doing pretty okay now that my shingles have (mostly) cleared up, and that means I was able to do a bit of work updating this list! Admittedly, there aren't too many entries compared to the last few updates, since that list by tamerlane was finally cleared up, but I've done what I could during the last few weeks in finding more interesting animated films, shorts, music videos and loads of other things! Massive thanks to YTWes and ibcf for recommending me shorts to watch while I was sick; I really appreciate that!

Before I go, I should point out that I'm currently looking into doing a music course in a local college. It starts in October, so if I do manage to get in, I won't be able to update this list as regularly as I've been able to do for the last few months. As well as that, I've not yet set up social media accounts to promote the project, but I happily admit that's pretty much due to my own laziness more than anything else. I'll get onto it eventually, but I don't want to make excuses as to why I've not gone anywhere with it at the moment.

With that, I'll leave you to try and figure out a plan for this project based on the above paragraph. In the meantime, thank you so much if you've contributed to the list in some way, please keep contributing with suggestions, feedback and other general ideas, and until we meet again, have a great day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM THE WEBSITE 'CARTOON RESEARCH', AS OF 22:29 - 25/SEPTEMBER/2017.

My apologies for the delay on this update. A few things came up that left me unable to work on this project and a couple of others for a while, but I was able to check out a few shorts and some articles from Cartoon Research (particularly the Cartoons Considered For Academy Awards articles; very interesting stuff! - here's the most recent one at the time of this update!). However, I will be starting a new college course next week, so there's a good chance that I won't be able to work on this as often as I could the last few months, so I apologize in advance if these updates become less frequent.

Today's update contains 54 films, a fair chunk of which come from the 1960's (which doesn't have nearly as many films suggested as most of the other decades) and a good few come from the last couple of years alone. I'm not lying when I say that some of these are genuinely fantastic, to the point where I'm actually going to give a few personal recommendations (they'll have a YT/Vimeo link if they can be found). Please check them out if you can:

That's it for today. I'll keep working to update the list, as well as figure out how to handle the social media aspect. Please keep contributing with suggestions and feedback, check out some of the films mentioned today, and thank you very much for reading and contributing! Until we meet again, have a great day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, TWITTER AND OTHER WEBSITES I WAS RECOMMENDED TO CHECK OUT, AS OF 13:23 - 9/OCTOBER/2017.

Well, today's update is a pretty special one. For one thing, it marks the sixth month anniversary of me setting up this forum thread and generally making a start on gathering suggestions for a possible project. It's amazing to think how quickly those months have flown by, and how much I've learned about all sorts of aspects of animation (both as a medium and an industry) in that time. I want to thank everyone who ever contributed to this project once more. I can't thank you enough for giving me the drive to keep going with this; you are all the best.

Secondly, I finally decided to go and do something about this social media business, after months of hesitation and nervousness. I don't have much of a plan as to what to do with things, but it's better to start and figure things out as I go along than to never get anything done if it's not perfect. With that, I give you...

Here, I'll be updating the list, answering questions and feedback from comments, and posting articles/videos/interviews on animation that I find quite fascinating. I'll occasionally post something of my own, but not very often due to how busy things are on my end. In the meantime, check out the page and if there's anything you'd like to suggest or contribute to, please do so! I'd really appreciate it!

Now, for the update, we've got 65 new entries for the list (most of which were from browsing through Cartoon Research's backlog of articles and listing any definitive recommendations from their writers). This takes us past 1900 films, meaning we don't have very far to go in order to get to 2000 films, which is insane considering how I originally thought that would have been the highest possible number of films to reach without scraping the bottom of the barrel. But now, there's still so much out there, or there's new stuff being created every day. It's honestly amazing, and it brings a smile to my face every time I think about.

That's it for today. I'll likely see y'all again in a couple of weeks, but please keep contributing in the meantime. Give suggestions and feedback, like and share the Facebook page if you can, and until we meet again, have a great day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, TWITTER, OTHER WEBSITES AND BOOKS I'VE BEEN READING, AS OF 20:50 - 21/OCTOBER/2017.

We've done it.

After six and a half months of working on this project, we've managed to reach a goal I never thought would have been reached so quickly:

2000 films.

Two thousand animated films, shorts, music videos, episodes, re-animations, internet videos and countless other experiments have been gathered under a list of suggestions.

That is indescribably insane, and indescribably amazing at the same time. I legitimately cannot believe we've come that far, and yet it still feels like there's still so much left out there to find. I know I said I'd wrap up the suggestions gathering period of the list when it reached 2000 films, but I feel like it's somehow still too low when trying to catalogue as many as possible.

So, I'm going to extend the final goal to somewhere between 3000/4000 films. When it gets to the point when it's clearly a struggle to find anything new, that's when I'll wrap up this phase of the project (and try to move this project somewhere forward).

To everyone who has contributed to this list, either directly, or through me reading about your recommendations elsewhere, I want to thank you once more. It's encouraged me to check out a world of animation I never knew of before, and it's been one of the main things keeping me going as of late. You are all amazing, and I want to give you the biggest hugs if we ever meet in real life.

With that, I'll leave you with a couple of links. The first couple are for a book that helped add a good few names to the list, while the rest are for a couple of online animation events that you might want to check out if you can - you might find something you love, after all.

The Complete Animation Course: The Principles, Practice and Techniques of Successful Animation by Chris Patmore (Obligatory Amazon and Goodreads links)

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, TWITTER, OTHER WEBSITES AND BOOKS I'VE BEEN READING, AS OF 19:42 - 1/NOVEMBER/2017.

Today's the biggest update in quite some time, with nearly 300 films being added to the list. This is largely in part thanks to a couple of lists some lovely folks over on reddit suggested or compiled when I decided to make a reddit thread over there (which you can check at here, if you're so interested). I haven't completely combed through those lists, so there's still quite a few films to include in the next update. As well as that, I've been reading a couple of books and forum threads that you may want to give a look:

Dragon Ball's True Genre: We Need To Talk About Wuxia by Kunzait_83 (a fascinating thread that gives a brief overview of the Wuxia genre and its modern history, featuring a few shorts, films and series that could go into the list. FYI, the thread originally had a lot of visual examples and gifs to demonstrate points, but have been blocked off by photobucket. So it won't be as effective, or CPU murdering, as it used to be. Sorry about that.)

With that, I'll leave you all to do your usual thing. Please contribute with suggestions and feedback, like and share the Facebook page, and thank you for reading. Until we meet again, have a great day y'all!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, TWITTER, OTHER WEBSITES AND BOOKS I'VE BEEN READING, AS OF 15:48 - 17/NOVEMBER/2017.

Good evening, everyone! I hope you're all doing well! Today's update is another biggun, with 196 films being added to the list. That takes us just over 2500 films, which is a pretty staggering number no matter how I think about it. As usual, I want to thank you all for your contributions and suggestions, since there's no way in hell I could have gotten this far without y'all. Thank you.

To make this update interesting, I'm going to recommend a trio of series, playlists, and channels on YouTube for y'all to watch:

GOBELINS - A French art school that regularly posts animated films by their students on the internet. There's a great variety in terms of visual styles, mediums, storytelling methods, etc. that will ensure you find at least two or three shorts worth watching; if nothing else, they're at least guaranteed to look gorgeous.

Mickey Mouse 2013, dir. Paul Rudish (supervising) - Airing since mid-2013, this latest run of Mickey Mouse provides some of the best slapstick comedy I've seen in years. Great timing, superb storyboarding, hysterical character expressions, and beyond make for a series absolutely worth watching!

A Collection of Kōji Nanke's Music Videos - Undoubtedly the most obscure of this list of recommendations, Kōji Nanke is an animator who primarily works on music videos for the NHK's children series Minna No Uta. His artstyle is often very simple and childlike (personally, it reminds me of Raymond Briggs at times), he often experiments with medium blending (characters animated on scraps of paper), and each video feels distinct from each other. It makes for a fascinating body of work from an animator who really should be given more recognition for how he always tries to innovate.

And with that, I'll leave y'all to do your thing. Please keep contributing with suggestions and feedback, like and share the FaceBook page, and check out a couple of films that grab your interest. Thank you for reading, and until we meet again, have a great day y'all!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, TWITTER, OTHER WEBSITES AND BOOKS I'VE BEEN READING, AS OF 22:10 - 1/DECEMBER/2017.

Good evening, everyone! I hope you're all doing well! To ring in the last month of 2017, we've got another update to the list, which features 78 new additions! It's a pretty interesting update, full of the earliest known animations from various countries round the world, which comes from the very interesting Animation - A World History: Volume 1 by Giannalberto Bendazzi, an animation history book that I might discuss later on this week (more on that in a minute). To everyone who has already contributed, thank you all once again. I'll say more in an update later on this month (since it'll likely be the last one for the year), but I do appreciate everything y'all have done.

In the meantime, I've been keeping the Facebook page busy with daily posts, recommending various animated works and articles/books/etc. about animated works. For those who don't use Facebook, I've decided to include the posts in a small document down below for you to read. I hope you enjoy the various things I recommend!

Animation is often seen as the modern-day equivalent of "The Creation of Adam", in which a god-like being sculpts a creature of their likeness from a ball of clay.

It's fitting then, that we begin with a comical interpretation of the myth as directed by Peter Lord, from Aardman Animations (Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Creature Comforts).

This was one of the first non-W&G Aardman shorts I ever watched, and it won me over with its purely visual comedy, the myriad of concepts and skits it tackles in such a short runtime, and that charming (if sometimes bleak) tone that made the British Claymation studio a darling the world over.

Geri's Game, a charming Pixar short about an old man playing chess (you might remember it being included on the VHS/DVD of A Bug's Life), celebrated its 20th anniversary just a few days. To add to this, renowned animation news site Cartoon Brew held an interview with the film's director Jan Pinkava, who went into the film's production, his philosophies and inspirations for creating it, and what it meant for Pixar at the time.

It's a great interview, full of interesting insights, sketches and storyboards for unused concepts and story ideas, and even a few name-dropped directors who helped to inspire the film's final direction. If you're a fan of Geri's Game, I can't recommend this interview enough.

FILM OF THE DAY! (Wednesday - 29/Nov/2017)---Neon Genesis Evangelion Episode 9: Both of You, Dance Like You Want To Win! (1995), dir. Seiji Mizushima, Hideaki Anno

(Or in this case, an episode...)

Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most widely recognized anime around. Directed by Hideaki Anno (who did Shin Godzilla last year), it's a character-driven mecha anime that soon goes down some very strange roads, and is as ground-breaking as it is divisive. Depending on who you ask, Evangelion is either a masterpiece worth celebrating every day or the biggest pile of pretentious nonsense since City of Angels.

I side with the former, and consider Evangelion to be a series that everyone should watch at least once.

So why am I talking about its NINTH episode, of all things? For three reasons:

1. Today happens to be the 22nd anniversary of this episode's premiere on Japanese TV, so it seemed like a good reason as any to talk about it.

2. It was the first ever episode of Evangelion I ever watched. It's a bit strange, but while I had been wanting to watch the show for some time, I was nervous to do so thanks to many things I'd heard heard about the series (namely, its subject matter and rather disturbing themes). However, when I heard that there was a light-hearted episode that wasn't like the rest of the series, I figured that could be a good way to test the waters before going forward. And so I watched Episode 9.

And that leads onto...

3. Episode 9, despite the somewhat odd tone it can have in relation to the rest of the series, is a fantastic episode. It demonstrates some of the show's key strengths, such as how effortlessly it conveys its world and characters without clunky exposition or awkward cuts between different segments of the cast.Even though I knew nothing about the show's plot or cast, I still managed to understand quickly what was going on through character interactions. I knew that something had happened between Kaji and Misato in the past, just through the tense scenes they shared together. I quickly grasped onto the relationships between the main three pilots (Shinji, Asuka and Rei), without having to be told upfront about it.

What makes the storytelling really work, however, is that despite its simplicity, there's still a lot left unsaid. Scenes occur and then will often end on a question of some sort, and it always keeps me thinking about these characters, always keeps me reading between the lines to see what's going on underneath. Not that Evangelion confuses obtuse presentation with complex storytelling, mind you. It's simply that the show tells its story in a very straightforward way, but then leaves enough open to keep me thinking about it long after the episode's wrapped up.

The film-making itself is also something to behold. The opening scene, a montage of pictures secretly taken of Asuka while students gossip about her, is a quietly voyeuristic sequence that grabs your attention from the off-set. The superb climactic fight against the Angel contains no sound other than a fantastic classical piece composed by Shiro Sagisu, letting the music sync with the animation in a truly unique way. And that scene between Shinji and Asuka at night! It's been five years since I first watched this episode, and I still haven't seen anything quite so subtly sinister since.

It's a great episode, and it's what made me take the plunge to watch what would become not just my favourite animated TV series, but also something that dramatically changed my life for the better. Maybe I'll tell you about it someday...

Unfortunately, unlike most of these recommendations, I can't easily link to the episode for you to watch it, or even a way to acquire it in a reasonable manner. Evangelion DVDs have been out of print in the West for years (you can find them online, but they're super expensive), and it isn't available on legal streaming sites like Crunchyroll or Netflix. And no, I'm not linking to torrenting or piracy sites; if you're curious enough, you can find that sort of thing by yourself.

At the very least, I'll post the only scene from the episode left unscatched on YouTube:

One of my favourite YouTube series is Dragon Ball Dissection, a retrospective where MistareFusion reviews and analyses the world-renowned Dragon Ball manga every step of the way. It's a series full of great insights into characters and plot points, and one that's had me think about the series in new ways over the years. If you're a Dragon Ball fan, it's a series to definitely keep an eye on.

Occasionally, he also looks at the TV anime adaptation (split into 'Dragon Ball' and 'Dragon Ball Z', the latter of which is much more well known to most of you reading this) to see how it differs from the source material, and any interesting tidbits that get his attention.

In this episode, he examines the TV special "Bardock: The Father of Goku"*, which tells the ill-fated, forgotten tale of series protagonist Son Goku's father, Bardock. It's an fascinating special, due to how it takes on a tone completely unlike anything else in Dragon Ball, and while being a prequel of all things!This video examines (among other things) how the Bardock Special manages to avoid the pitfalls that come with making prequels, the character of Bardock and an interesting way of writing a sympathetic villain protagonist, and what makes the Bardock Special so... special.

If you're a Dragon Ball fan, definitely give this video (and Dragon Ball Dissection in general) a look. And even if you're not, maybe check this out and see what you think.

*This is the name used for the English localization, which I decided to use for the sake of being concise. The original Japanese name is translated as "A Lonesome, Final Battle - The Father of Z Warrior Son Goku, who Challenged Freeza".

One of the best things about working on the '1001 Animated Films You Should Watch' project is checking out films, shorts, shows and other works that I might not have previously given more than a passing glance. And what's even better is when I check out one of those works and it becomes one of my favourite things to have discovered this year.

Which brings us onto the topic of this post: the (frankly fantastic) series of Mickey Mouse shorts being released since 2013. If you grew up watching Disney shorts from the 30's-50's and are expecting these new shorts to be like those, please leave your expectations at the door: this is not your grandparents' Mickey Mouse.

It's a fast, frantic series full of wild chase scenes, over-exaggerated character expressions, and ridiculous escapades - it honestly feels more like Ren & Stimpy than anything to do with what most people would think of when it comes to Mickey Mouse, and I love it! There's such a manic energy behind every element of the series; the animation, the storyboarding, the soundtrack, the acting; that I find it utterly delightful, and the release of yet another episode always makes me giddy to sit down and see what wonderful madness is about to unfold.

Even the worst episodes never fail to put a smile on my face, and that really speaks to how much I adore this series. So, I figured that it would be the best place to start with when doing these weekend collections.

This custom playlist contains every episode aired of the series so far in chronological order (it's totally legal, too, since it's uploaded on the official Mickey Mouse YouTube channel!). Maybe I'll go more in-depth on some of these shorts at some point, but my highest recommendations would be:

This animated student film's gotten quite a bit of attention ever since it was uploaded earlier this year, and for good reason.

It's a short, exciting chase full of twists and turns, simple character designs that lend themselves very nicely to animation, and a great jazzy tune that punctuates the action. But what I particularly like about it is how it echoes the spirit of 1960's TV anime (and I'm not talking about the Osamu Tezuka/Astro Boy inspired look).

Creation animation for TV is always going to be an arduous task, since it demands a ridiculous amount of content in an unreasonably small span of time. In order to get things done without killing their entire workforce, animation studios chose to make cuts in certain areas - namely, the number of drawings used.

In America, this led to shows where dialogue-driven stories was the main focus, since the animation wouldn't be anywhere near as good as during the days of theatrical animation (Hanna-Barbera, Filmation, etc.). While in Japan, this led to shows where the creators tried to make those few drawings as interesting as possible, through storyboarding, exciting character animation and so on (for examples, go watch this collection of animated sequences by Hayao Miyazaki).

Diamond Jack echoes and respects this legacy by containing a small number of drawings, but using each one to effectively express the characters' emotions and actions. It can be a bit rough at first, at least compared to Western cartoons full of silky smooth animation, but there's something impressive about how there's so much life put into these characters with only a fraction of the drawings used elsewhere.

If you don't believe me, check this short out and see what you think. Maybe you'll learn something new.

To round off this first week, I'm going to recommend the book that arguably kicked off my interest in animation appreciation. This book was given to my brother when working on his Game Design course at St John's College, and I started reading it whenever he wasn't using it for anything.

It's a detailed book that goes into the history of animation (as provided by famed animation historian Brian Sibley), the tools needed to create plasticine animation, insight into various aspects of production such as animation principles, set design, lighting, model-making, and more.

To demonstrate many of its points, the book used examples of films Aardman had created over the years, and it encouraged me to go and give many of them a look. Adam (as discussed earlier this week), Wat's Pig, Not Without My Handbag, and Loves Me, Loves Me Not were among those shorts, and they made me want to know more about the world of animation.

This book is arguably responsible for leading me down the path I'm on, the creation of the 1001 Animated Films project, and for this Facebook page. For that, I'm eternally grateful, and I can only hope that if you are curious enough to check out this book, you'll get something out of it too.

*Also known as "Cracking Animation: The Aardman Book of 3-D Animation", which is what you'll find in the link (the book has since been updated to feature some of their newer work, such as the Shaun the Sheep movie)

There's not much else I have to say for now, so I think I'll leave it at that. Please continue to contribute with suggestions and feedback, share this project and the Facebook page around, and thank you all again. Until we meet again, have a great day!

LIST HAS BEEN UPDATED WITH SUGGESTIONS FROM DK VINE, TWITTER, OTHER WEBSITES AND BOOKS I'VE BEEN READING, AS OF 16:25 - 22/DECEMBER/2017.

Good evening, everyone! I hope you're all doing well! Today's update will mark the last update to the 1001 Animated Films You Should Watch project of 2017, and I would like to mark this occasion with three things.

First, the latest update features 130 new additions, which means that the total number of suggestions is a little over 2700 FILMS! No matter how long I've been working on this project, the fact that there's still so many works to consider including on the list; nevermind the fact that there's always a dozen or so new things over the horizon; is both ridiculous and amazing!

Secondly, here's the collection of daily recommendations I've been doing on FB since the last update. I hope you enjoy my thoughts and whatever I recommend.

SPOILER: Show

FILM OF THE DAY! (Monday - 4/Dec/2017)

Kung Fu Cooking Girls (2011), dir. Jin Roh*

WARNING: Slightly NSFW (Not Safe For Work)

An exhausted traveller wanders into a town, desperate for rest and food. Two cooks of excellent skill, but opposite ideals for what makes a good meal, compete for his attention and money in every way imaginable.

For fans of simple but effective character designs, very expressive animation, and action scenes full of gorgeous smears and impact frames, this is the short for you.

The video quality's not the best (360p might have been the best the studio's Vimeo channel could upload at back in 2011), but the quality of the animation, the storyboarding and the action still shines through regardless.

I'll keep this recommendation short, since there's not a lot that I can say that isn't already said in this frankly great video by A Humble Professor, which provides a brief but well-made gateway into the topic of appreciating quality character animation (and for a Disney film, at that!).

If you're a fan of The Rescuers (the film being discussed in this video), or Disney animation in general, please check out this video. I guarantee you'll get something out of it.

I'm a sucker for animation with a very stylized use of colour, so it shouldn't be too surprising that the first music video to be recommended in these daily posts is one that goes all out on style.

I'm not really a fan of the song (it's just not my thing), but I'll happily admit that a lot of work was done to make sure that the animation fit it as well as possible: the calm turning into a storm when the song transitions from verse to chorus, the timing of the animation syncs up to the song's beats, and even the use of colour changes depending on what of the song we're at.

It's a visually distinctive video, and one backed by some great animation. The different characters each have their own designs and mannerisms that shine through in the animation, the strong lighting adds a unique atmosphere, and there's excellent shots that pull off complex camera movement without a sweat. It's an all-round great music video, and one I'd happily urge anyone to check out.

In my ongoing search for important works in the history of animation, and to simply gain a better understanding of that history, I've been hitting up the local library quite frequently to see if they've got any books to help me out. And one such book, lurking deep within the reference section, is the first in a three voulme series covering the history of animation from the 1890's up until now.

Overseen by Giannalberto Bendazzi, considered the world's best animation historian, this first volume looks at the various developments in the medium of animation (and by extension, the history of film) from the beginning up until the mid-1940's. It looks at various directors and animators from all across the world, the many works they created, and how they contributed to animation in all manner of ways.

It's a very in-depth book, and one that can be a bit too daunting for those who are only just getting into animation appreciation, but it's one that I would highly recommend checking out however you can. I link to Amazon, but you can easily get it on Google Play Books, eBooks, your local library, and many other places.

If you're at all interested in the history of animation, or the history of film since the two are frequently intertwined, please consider giving this book a look.

Today marks a truly exciting occassion, with the beginning of the European Animation Awards (http://animationawards.eu/) - an animation festival meant to celebrate the medium and the work of European animators on a scale previously unseen in the continent. As a European, it's really cool to see such a thing happening, and one area that's got me particularly excited is the Lotte Reiniger Lifetime Award.

Named after the acclaimed European animator/director, the award is handed out to an individual who has spent their lifetime contributing to and forwarding the medium of animation in any way possible, and so it's fitting that the very first Lotte Reiniger Award should be handed to the great Richard Williams.

Richard Williams is a British animator who is known for directing films and commercials packed to the brim with incredibly smooth animation, insane camera movements that are pulled off effortlessly, and the final works of many great Golden Age animators such as Ken Harris, Art Babbitt and Grim Natwick.

He is primarily known round the world for directing the sublime animation in the game-changing Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but animation fans remember him for his unfinished masterpiece The Thief and the Cobbler: a decades-spanning film intended to demonstrate what traditional animation could do when pushed to its limits and beyond. I'll talk about the latter at some point, but that's the least of Williams' work.

His animation studio was well known for producing excellently animated commercials and opening sequences for films such as Charge of the Light Brigade and Return of the Pink Panther, alongside cult classics like A Christmas Carol (1971), The Little Island, and Raggedy Ann & Andy: A Musical Adventure (all of which were directed by Williams).

Today, Williams is known for creating The Animator's Survival Kit, one of the modern-day essentials in teaching animators how to animate. In all these ways and more, Richard Williams is undoubtedly deserving of the very first Lotte Reiniger Lifetime Award, and I personally congratulate him and wish him the very best on his future endevours.

The first link below will take you to TheThiefArchive, a YouTube channel dedicated towards archiving as much of Richard Williams' work as possible. This includes the various commercials and opening sequences made for dozens of clients, the critically acclaimed Recobbled Cut for Thief and the Cobbler, his shorts films A Christmas Carol and The Little Island, and more.

If you want to know why Williams is heralded throughout the world, please look through the channel, and consider checking out his other films (or watching them on whatever you have if they're readily available).

Watching Monty Python's Flying Circus (and their various films) when I was younger, one of my favourite things were the endlessly weird animated segments created by Terry Gilliam. Often used to transition between sketches, they would feature paper cut-outs of old photographs and classical artwork mingling with whatever strange creatures Gilliam would draw in his own distinctive way, and be comprised of a very strange logic that made them a joy to watch.

But before Monty Python, Gilliam made a couple of short films using his distinctive style, one of which is the hilariously barmy Story Time. I'll not say any more than that, since it would be an impossible, and a wasted, effort to try and describe Gilliam's animation anymore than I already have.

One of the biggest games to have come out this year is the madcap shooting game Cuphead. What captures most people's attention is not its high level of challenge, or the variety of bosses you'll be facing off against, but instead its visual style. Cuphead is very clearly inspired by the 1930's rubberhose era of animated, as demonstrated by the likes of the Fleischer Studios and early Disney, but how much so?

In this informative and interesting video, Super Eyepatch Wolf goes through the many inspirations Studio MDHR took in creating Cuphead - from character designs to the atmosphere conveyed to the animation principles used to give the enormous, charming cast life. It's a good example of how animation can affect the creation and enjoyment of the many mediums surrounding it, and ultimately the kind of impact that animation can have when recognized and used to its full potential.

While looking for films or music videos to include in the latest update to the '1001 Animated Films You Should Watch' list, I ended up watching quite a few shorts by the animator Nicolas Ménard. His shorts often use very distinctive, almost 'pop art' like imagery with a strong use of colours, often fused with an absurdist bent that can lead to some quite strange, and quite dark, stories.

One such short is Loop Ring Chop Drink, a short covering the lives of 4 people living in the same apartment block, and how they are end up impacting each other in little ways. If you're in the mood for bright colours with dark undertones, or at least in the mood for some absurdist humour, look no further than this short.

From Mexico To Germany, Polish Artists Are Playing A Key Role In Global Animation Productions; Cartoon Brew

One of the most exciting aspects of working on the '1001 Animated Films You Should Watch' project is that it encourages me to pay attention to the animation industry, and any interesting developments that occur at time goes by. One development in particular that's got me interested is the way that Polish artists have been contributing to numerous stop-motion animated works in recent years.

This article from Cartoon Brew looks at the studio Momakin, which has helped with the production of the upcoming Inzomnia (Mexico's first feature length stop-motion film!), and the overall movement to help promote the impact that Poland has had on the art of animation. For fans of stop-motion, or people who like to keep abreast of positive news within the animation industry, this an article I highly recommend you read!

I'll happily admit that when it comes to animated shorts, I am a complete sucker for novelty. Tell me about a short featuring any kind of unconventional material being animated; wool, sand, thumb tacks and rubber bands; and I am guaranteed to check it out. One such example is today's For Socks Sake, a 2008 short about the adventures of numerous articles of clothing and their attempt to save a friend.

It's a silly, irreverent short, but it always impresses how animators have the ability to humanize anything (considering how often we draw the line between organic and inorganic, for instance), and it's always a joy seeing the animation and trying to decipher the steps they took to make give these clothes life. It won't be for everyone, of course, but I highly urge you give it a watch and see what you think!

I'll keep this one short, since (much like the Milt Kahl video I linked last week) there isn't a whole lot that I can say about this interesting analysis of what is considered by many to be the best Batman movie that isn't already said within the video itself.

I'm not really a fan of Batman: The Animated Series, which Mask of the Phantasm is a part of, but this video has at least helped me to get a better understanding of why this series (and Batman in general) is often given such critical acclaim.

Maybe you'll understand as well after watching this vid (or hell, maybe you're a fan and will enjoy hearing a good analytical insight onto the film - that's also pretty good!).

Kōji Nanke is an animator primarily recognized for his work on the opening and ending sequences to various hit anime such as Urusei Yatsura, Ranman 1/2 and Maison Ikkoku, due to his eye-popping visuals and unique use of medium blending (which is the combination of numerous forms of animation to create something distinct). However, he is also well known for the music videos he creates for the Japanese TV programs Minna No Uta (Everyone's Songs) and Ponkikki.

What's great about Nanke is that he's always trying something new with each video; while there ocassionaly may be a recurring style to the way he draws people (a simple, child like look that always reminds of Raymond Briggs), he's never content to rest on his laurels. Each video contains some new method of medium blending, a different artstyle or colour design, or generally a new way to tell a compelling story that fits the music and its overall mood.

Even though he's been in the industry for just over 45 years, he's still working on music videos, and still experimenting. Just earlier this year, he produced "My birthday has come! Wai! Wai!" for Ponkikki, and I can only presume that he's still got more up his sleeve.

This linked playlist, created by Servernode/Animated Golem (who got me into Nanke to begin with), features every Nanke music video that has been found and uploaded onto YouTube (in chronological order as well), along with the various openings and endings he's animated over the years.

Hopefully, this'll brighten up your mood, and demonstrate how versitile a single animator can be.

I'm feeling a bit silly today, so I've decided to post a short with a very odd, sometimes bleak sense of humour. It's not particularly impressive in terms of animation or production values, but there's something about it that I can't help but find really funny.

NO MORE POSTS HAVE BEEN DONE SINCE THEN, DUE TO THINGS GETTING BUSY FOR A WHILE

And finally, I want to thank everybody who has contributed to it over the last several months. I wish I could find the words in me to express the gratitude I have for all of you, for helping me find all kinds of amazing things from across the history of animation, for helping me to further understand and appreciate how amazing this medium is, and for giving me something to work towards during times when I felt like I couldn't do anything.

I thank you all from the bottom of my heart, and I want to wish you all the very best in everything. Have a lovely Christmas, have a wonderful new year, and have a fantastic life in general.